Epsilon: Driving Commercial Change Through Gamification (#783)

PAULA: Hello, and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, a show for loyalty marketing professionals.

PAULA: I’m Paula Thomas, the founder and CEO of Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, where we feature insightful conversations with loyalty professionals from the world’s leading brands.

PAULA: Today’s episode is hosted by Amanda Cromhout, the founder of Truth Loyalty, an international loyalty consultancy.

PAULA: She’s also the author of the book, Blind Loyalty, 101 Loyalty Concepts Radically Simplified, and the founder of the Blind Loyalty Trust.

PAULA: Enjoy.

AMANDA: Hi, I’m Amanda Cromhout, the founder of Truth Loyalty and the author of Blind Loyalty, 101 Loyalty Concepts Radically Simplified.

AMANDA: Today’s Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV show is brought to you from London, with Mrinalini Chowdray.

AMANDA: She is the director of Strategy and Insights at EMEA Epsilon.

AMANDA: Epsilon needs no introduction to the loyalty world.

AMANDA: It’s been helping clients deliver loyalty objectives globally for over 50 years.

AMANDA: It combines deep loyalty expertise with their technology to get growth-based programs, changing habits and measuring long-term value for its clients.

AMANDA: But today’s podcast is not about technology.

AMANDA: It is not about loyalty rules engine.

AMANDA: It is about gamification and Mrinalini leaves us with an absolute masterclass in gamification and consumer psychology.

AMANDA: Today’s Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV discussion is with a very interesting individual who’s gonna share incredible insights into the hot topic of gamification.

AMANDA: I’m speaking today with Mrinalini from Epsilon.

AMANDA: She is the Director of Strategy and Insights at EMEA Epsilon.

AMANDA: So Mrinalini, welcome to Loyalty TV.

AMANDA: It’s such a pleasure to have you today.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I am so excited.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I have been waiting for this conversation for a while.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s almost like I have been collecting all the Let’s Talk Loyalty coins, listening to all your episodes and now I’m getting to redeem all of it, you see.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: This is my reward.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Yes.

AMANDA: I love it.

AMANDA: I love that.

AMANDA: How cute.

AMANDA: Collecting the Let’s Talk Loyalty coins and now we’re redeeming.

AMANDA: So let’s redeem away and get that dopamine hit.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Yes.

AMANDA: I think it’s really fabulous to chat to you because Epsilon was actually the first ever sponsor, however many episodes ago, like hundreds of episodes ago, over five years ago of the original Let’s Talk Loyalty show.

AMANDA: We’ve done full circle and it’s just fabulous to have you here today.

AMANDA: I’m looking forward to our discussion.

AMANDA: I think you know that one of the first questions we like to ask just to get to know you a little bit better is, what is your favorite business book or non-fictional read?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Absolutely.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I thought about this.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: My favorite one, and I have to admit was Atomic Habits by James Clear.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It was something that completely changed the way I looked at things.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: When I picked it up, and I have to be honest about this, when I picked it up, the reason why I did it was because I wanted to get up in the morning and not make a million excuses, press the snooze button and go back to sleep.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: No, I wanted to go for that run.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I wanted to go for that walk, but oh my God, it was so difficult.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I thought what could actually help me?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Everyone’s talking about this book.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Okay, I must pick it up.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Picked it up, and then as I was reading it, the central theme of it, that transformational change is not something that’s so grand.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s the 1% daily improvement.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I took a lot from that.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I took a lot from that, and there were four different sorts of laws that he speaks about.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Making it obvious, making it attractive, making it easy, and making it satisfying.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And what hit me at that point, because I was playing this video game, it was called The Legend of Zelda.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And it hit me that gaming uses all of this.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s how it creates the habit.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s those micro changes, micro engagement, micro rewarding, and that kind of stacks up.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You create rituals and you have habits.

AMANDA: Look at that.

AMANDA: You just want to get up for a run quite innocently and that 1% change per day brings you all circle to the loyalty world.

AMANDA: That’s what it’s about, it’s human psychology.

AMANDA: So I think what’s so special about today’s conversation is you are a very established writer already.

AMANDA: You’ve got a wonderful blog, All Things Loyalty and you write for other publications as well.

AMANDA: And your focus is so interesting around consumer psychology.

AMANDA: And obviously gamification as a story that we want to unpick today plays directly into that.

AMANDA: So tell us a little bit more before we get into Epsilon and why gamification.

AMANDA: Tell us a little bit more about you.

AMANDA: How have you come to the position you’re in now and your passion behind All Things Loyalty?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Absolutely.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So I came into Epsilon about nine years ago.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But before that, I was part of the startup world.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I played, I wore multiple hats.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I was in consulting.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I got into marketing.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I got into product management.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But in that first nine year period, I worked towards building with one of my companies, worked towards building a cricket gaming app.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s probably when my obsession with gamification really began.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I started looking at game mechanics, why people engaged, why they came back, what made them stick.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Shortly after that, I joined Epsilon and then my world became all about loyalty and CRM and CX and I fell in love with loyalty at that point because then I realized, oh my God, it’s such a good fit.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Gamification and loyalty became a good fit.

AMANDA: Yeah, absolutely.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s where everything really started.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: My objective here, because of my background in psychology and business, I started looking at everything from the perspective of behavioral design.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s what happened.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But I left Epsilon for a little short stint, which actually turbo boosted my desire to learn about gamification because I was working in a company called Z Entertainment.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s one of India’s largest entertainment and media companies, where we looked at gamification and here we looked at live events, live shows, and we looked at it from a different direction.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I had a different lens when I looked at it.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That made it even stronger for me, this entire understanding of gamification.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: When I came back to Epsilon, I came back with all of that.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s how it just took off.

AMANDA: I always say, if I’m opening on a keynote, I’ll always say, loyalty can’t be serious.

AMANDA: We have to make it a bit of fun.

AMANDA: Listening to you talking about a cricket gaming app, we all know how passionate the nation of India is about cricket as a sport, and just a sport in general.

AMANDA: I think it’s incredible that you’ve done that full circle without intention necessarily.

AMANDA: But now you’re back at Epsilon, so we all know Epsilon.

AMANDA: There’s no question that such an established, seriously respected player in the loyalty industry.

AMANDA: So my question is, I’ve already mentioned what our conversation today isn’t about the traditional Epsilon points and tiers and business rules engine and so forth.

AMANDA: It’s about gamification.

AMANDA: And that might take a few folks by surprise.

AMANDA: So let’s start off the conversation, why now?

AMANDA: Like, why are we talking to you at Epsilon about gamification?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s true.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You’re absolutely right.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You know, Epsilon doesn’t need any introduction to a loyalty, 50 years in loyalty, right?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But the reason for gamification now is because of the outside forces that are playing.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: There are, you know, if you look at the market, it’s saturated with loyalty programs.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s got so many different sorts of loyalty programs and it’s got gamification as well, right?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But when we look at this, and I like to say that a lot of the gamification that I have seen is passive in nature.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s one point.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: The other is I’m seeing obviously that there are so many different sorts of consumer groups that are coming in.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: The younger generation, they are so much more into digital activities.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s another reason.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And when I look at what is happening with technology, with agentic commerce coming in, and when I look at all these different forces, I mean, very soon, they’re going to decide what we buy.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s going to be logic driven.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So where does emotion come in?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So we need to capitalize on that part of it.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: We need to get people hooked onto things.

AMANDA: Yeah.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Emotionally, right?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So we’re moving from a very passive environment of gamification to a more adaptive environment, where it’s done obviously digitally, and it’s all about building that emotion.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s all about creating stickiness, and it’s that 1% change that was talked about.

AMANDA: Love it.

AMANDA: Love it.

AMANDA: I do think listening to you and just thinking about the last five years in the loyalty industry, gamification is finally being taken seriously.

AMANDA: I think initially it was that sort of word you mentioned in a boardroom and everyone rolled their eyes and go, what are you on about now?

AMANDA: But I do feel now it is being taken seriously because of the results we’re starting to see, because of the nudges, because of the behavior change.

AMANDA: But actually, the question I want to start off with actually to get our discussion going is to grab everyone’s attention around, how do we measure the commercial return?

AMANDA: Is there a commercial return on gamification?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Very good question.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Everybody wants to know this.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Let’s just take a moment and break this down a little bit.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I like to break it down in this way because it gives you layers to think about.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: My topmost layer is always looking at what the company’s goal is.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Then this would be the golden metrics at the end of it.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s about, am I increasing revenue?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Am I increasing transactions?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: My customer lifetime value, is that increasing?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Everyone knows all of this.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But there’s something that changes all of this.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Let’s look at the next layer.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: The next layer becomes the levers.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: This is just exactly the same as what we talk about in loyalty.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Is my average order value going up?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Is my average order frequency going up?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Am I acquiring people?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And those people are purchasing.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Am I retaining or reactivating people?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And are those people, are the frequency going up there?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: These are my success metrics.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But what changes the success metrics?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s the engagement stuff.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So this can be transactional.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: This can be non-transactional.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But it’s about always checking that.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And I like to do this with a funnel approach.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Because we, you know, you might run a seven-day streak.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Now, I need to see how many people have taken this up.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s the number one.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Are people coming onto the website?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Are people going to that particular page?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Are people, you know, taking up this particular streak?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And then is it leading to a conversion?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So it’s a process.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But the engagement metrics must be checked very often.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Then comes the success.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Then comes the golden metrics.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But the objective here is to really check if the micro moments are creating the engagement.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Because it’s not about bringing the success metric up by just giving like a discount, because that will immediately affect the success metric.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But it’s about the engagement metric going up leading to the success metric.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: The way I do it is just look at the customer journey, figure out those moments, tap into those moments, break down those moments to make it micro.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I’ll give you an example.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: If you’re thinking about, let’s say, the enrollment process, everyone has an enrollment page where you put your name, put your birthday, put your e-mail.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: What if you broke that down rather than having it just in one shot?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: What are for every single item that you put in?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You get, you got five points, you got five points again.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You’re breaking it down and then you are seeing engagement.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That leads to the next level.

AMANDA: I think for as loyalty practitioners, everyone obviously at a certain level will be measuring KPIs.

AMANDA: I think exactly what you said, measuring that next layer down, the sub-level of measuring every separate engagement and every separate behavioral nudge and layer by layer, is something that we need to make sure we have a technology solution that A can do that and B can provide the data for us to do that.

AMANDA: Otherwise, it may feel utterly impossible.

AMANDA: Some organizations already very stretched, very scared of the level of data, the granularity of data that loyalty can produce and can’t get their head around existing data, and then to go to another layer as well.

AMANDA: In order, exactly as you said, to understand that then ultimately changes basket size, frequency, customer lifetime value.

AMANDA: That’s the conversations that I know you’ll be having with clients, and we look forward to unpacking those now.

AMANDA: Apart from the commercial return, you’ve mentioned your background and you’ve talked about business and psychology, which is just like the perfect collision of two disciplines.

AMANDA: But let’s talk about the psychology behind gamification.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Sure.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: The first thing that people think about when they think gamification, they’ll think of games.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: They might just think of a scratch card, or they’ll think of a spin to win.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I think about it a bit differently.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: My first angle here is to think about what am I trying to get somebody to do, and what would make them do that?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: What is the psychological driver that will make somebody do something?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: For me, gamification is not just about the mechanic, it is about the visuals, it’s about the effect, it’s about the sound that’s used, it’s about the content.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Just think of a game.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I’m currently playing Harry Potter, and as I go through the game, I’ll see a little wand going from one place to the other, and I know I’m supposed to look there.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s the visual effect of gamification.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And you bring that into the business world.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Now, if we think about it, what is it that we are trying to make people do?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: One is to be emotionally attached with the company.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So think about it as a higher purpose.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s one purpose.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I think Nike does this really, really well, because it’s not what you get from Nike always, it’s who you become.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s in a way an identity that they are trying to bring in.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I’m thinking about the shoes that we need to buy, but actually I’m trying to be an athlete.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s the purpose.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And then you think about achievement.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Achievement is all about keeping that momentum going, keeping that progress going, right?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s the more closer you get to what you want, the more you want to the goal gradient effect.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But in gamification, what I do like to do is break that.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So for example, if you have tears and they’re too far apart, why not have a milestone?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Because that brings you closer, always.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: The feeling of going forward is very important.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Empowerment.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: How can we empower people to feel that they are part of this program?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You have to give them choice.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I think a very long time ago, I saw choice being offered by Sephora, where you could choose your reward out of three rewards.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Then when I look at currently, when I look at B2B programs, the choice here is around, can I upskill myself?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I’m actually helping the brand itself.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Then Delight, everyone knows Delight, because we always get happy with a surprise of sorts.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: What I do like about the next one is about being social.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Now, when we think about gamification and we think social, or even loyalty, we think, oh, let’s pull them onto a social platform.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But that’s not always it.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Gamification brings social to a different level.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: For example, if you have badges, badges are something that you want to share and show off a little bit, that becomes the social aspect.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You will have scarcity and you will have loss aversion, which are things that work excellently.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You can use that even when you gamify your program.

AMANDA: Yeah.

AMANDA: These are all terms that many of us know or use or may have heard of if listeners to the podcast aren’t as entrenched in psychology.

AMANDA: But it is great to hear you just break them down and attach them to the different experiences exactly as you’ve just described, whether it’s as you’re getting close to a goal and gradient effects and so forth.

AMANDA: But let’s have a deeper look at just gamification, because the different layers of engagement, obviously, we’re all different consumers, so I may react very differently to you, you may react very differently to everyone else.

AMANDA: You might be such a deep gamer that a brand needs to tap into a different level.

AMANDA: How does your background and the input into the Epsilon gamification approach look, if you look at those different levels and layers that are required?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Well, I like to look at it as, let’s keep it at three.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: If I look at it as, let’s say the momentary engagement.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Now, this is when you have your spin to wins, you have your scratch cards and you have the quick interactive games.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Now, this works well.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It works well in some cases, like with publishers, with social platforms, publishers like New York Times.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It works great.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It pulls you in.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It gets you through the door and then you get hooked on because now you’re stuck in the loop of the content circulation and you read.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: The word.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Yeah, exactly.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Then you have LinkedIn with the games on the side, keeps you on.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: If you start getting a little bored, you might just go and play a game or two.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But the objective here is time spent.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You want them to stay.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s time spent.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Now, what we do is take this one step further.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: When we take it a step further, we think of periodic engagement.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Now, this is applied when we want time invested, because we want people to keep coming back, but with an investment for something at the end, like an end goal.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Why I say periodic and why I keep this at the middle is because you can think about it as, let’s say, an advent calendar.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s maybe a monthly thing or a streak that lasts for seven days, or something that’s monthly.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Now, it’s not 100 percent connected to your loyalty program per se.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s something that’s bolted on to your loyalty program.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: If we go one step further, that’s where we integrate gamification within the loyalty program itself.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s intertwined into it because yes, we have in loyalty, we have the hard benefits and the soft benefits.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: The soft benefits are all about intrinsic motivation.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: In this, it adds another layer to the intrinsic motivation.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Now, it’s not enough to only put a mechanic forward.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s all about testing whether that’s doing well and pushing what does better.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s constantly adapting to the behavior of the member at the end of it.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s when because it’s so integrated into the loyalty program itself, it is a time invested into it.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Then if you add community on top of it, that takes it one step further.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Basically, it’s rooted in the concept of live ops, which is taken from the gaming world.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s about ongoing management optimization of what you put forward next and the next.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Everyone has, let’s say, a sequential journey that is tailored for you.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You and I might go on a totally two different journeys.

AMANDA: I was just about to ask you if the gaming world is personalized per user, right?

AMANDA: So they’re going deeper and deeper and deeper per user.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s right.

AMANDA: That’s what it is.

AMANDA: Yeah.

AMANDA: I mean, I always laugh when I have conversations around personalization and it’s the most overused word in our industry.

AMANDA: And how many brands are actually really getting it right?

AMANDA: And this solution would be to get this engagement personalization to that level.

AMANDA: So you started off, I mean, it’s probably on reflection, no surprise, that you reflected on Atomic Habits being your favorite book.

AMANDA: Because as you said, that 1% nudge, that habitual change, it’s not about just encouraging someone to be motivated to go for a run.

AMANDA: It’s about the 1% and getting you up and then trying to do a 1K or 2K or 5K or whatever the journey is.

AMANDA: So how, I mean, gamification obviously drives habitual change.

AMANDA: It drives that need to change by nudging habits.

AMANDA: So talk us through that element, because you’ve mentioned the different layers, but I just want to go a little bit deeper on the habitual change.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So how do we actually create that habitual change?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I think you have to go back to the drawing board and have to get into the nitty-gritties of what exactly is a customer doing with your platform or your website or your app.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I always like to go right to the customer journey, the ideal one first, and then look at the others.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: When I look at it, I look at every single moment, every single moment that the customer has with the brand.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I think about, what is that behavior that I want to drive?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: What is the ideal behavior that I want to drive?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Then I think about it versus what effort does a person have to do, to what outcome do I want to get, and how much am I willing to put in for the cost?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So that decides the incentive or the virtual currency or the currency that I’m going to put.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: After that, I’m going to break down this task because I want it to be microtasks.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I don’t want to just say, I’m giving you 100 points because you’ve signed up.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I’m giving you five points because you give me my name.

AMANDA: Yeah.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Stuff like that.

AMANDA: Yeah.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I also think about what is the exact driver that is going to make somebody do this?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Does it make more sense to have a progress bar?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Or does it make more sense to just at the end of it, have like confetti coming up and saying, oh, you’ve done this?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So I think through all of that.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And then we put it all together to kind of put a gamification tactic as a wrapper around a bonus event.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s how I kind of choose what sort of gaming mechanic would work in a particular scenario.

AMANDA: 100 percent.

AMANDA: What I wanted to ask you there, you mentioned, for example, some consumer, maybe it’s a progress bar that shows I’ve started here and maybe to get to a tier change or to a points bonus or confetti or whatever on the screen, the visual match.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Yeah.

AMANDA: Are you able to, I mean, different customers would respond to different things, right?

AMANDA: So I might be totally motivated by the progress bar and find the visual effects a little bit superfluous or vice versa.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Yes.

AMANDA: So how do you determine that?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s through the LiveOps part of things, right?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So it’s all about testing.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I can use the word testing to make this much easier to understand.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s about having a sort of a multivariate testing going on.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So is this action, is action B doing better or action A doing better?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Then we pick and choose which one.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And it keeps refining it.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And the one that does better is selected.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s how it keeps getting more and more attuned to who you are.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And for example, let me actually give you an example.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: For example, if you go onto a website, right?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And you’ve answered a question once you’ve signed up, you’ve done a poll where it’s asked you, are you eco-friendly?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Do you think you’re an eco-friendly person or do you think you like deals?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And let’s say you answered something else and I answered something else, but the next challenge that is put forward is different for you and different for me.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Because it’s dependent on my past action.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And then the following action might be because, let’s say I added something to my wishlist, but you added something to your cart.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So the amount that I’m going to probably give in because my intent, because it’s in the wishlist, is lower than your intent because it’s in the cart.

AMANDA: Yeah.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Intent also plays a role in the amount of, let’s say currency that you give.

AMANDA: I was in a meeting yesterday actually with a client who was testing a competitor’s program and the conversation without mentioning names, went something like this.

AMANDA: I wanted to sign up for the program, but they needed so much information.

AMANDA: Then they asked me within the sign up process, I still hadn’t signed up all of the hobbies and do I have pets, and do I have this, and do I have the other?

AMANDA: Then they wanted my ID number, and then they wanted my salary because they have a financial services division.

AMANDA: We just laughed about, and then completely different industry, a client is launched in the marketplace, and they literally asked for name, surname, cell phone number.

AMANDA: Now they’ve got the customer in, they are rewarding for acquiring this additional data.

AMANDA: How successful they are could be more successful if they listen to this podcast, but at least they’ve got to that understanding of the sign up process being as simple as possible, and then acquiring data, whether it’s first or zero-party data at a different stage.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Oh, yes.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I had a conversation actually about this very thing some time ago when we were looking at what is ROI at the end of it.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s so different based on a brand’s maturity in loyalty.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: If you’re just starting off, you’re thinking, oh my God, my ROI, I need to think about it because how much budget am I going to put in?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s the first stuff that they think about.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Middle-level ROI, it needs to be something else.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s about incremental change.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: The next level is the data.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It becomes so important because that’s the hidden one.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s the hidden ROI.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Now, that data that you collect in micro-moments progressively, and not just like 10 questions at one shot, it’s just breaking it down into different phases.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: When you think of the highest level, you’re thinking of all the data that’s collected, the identity that you’re creating around that person, and then finally, fueling other business divisions, retail media for one, through this data.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Your ROI conversation also changes as how mature you get.

AMANDA: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

AMANDA: You’ve got so many examples, obviously, probably swimming around your brain, around what looks good in gamification, but can you share with us real examples of actual actions you’ve seen, and brands you’re prepared to share with us around good execution or your fate?

AMANDA: Or let me rephrase the question, where have you seen gamification really have impacts on potentially traditional loyalty measures?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s a very good question because sometimes people ask me this question and I’m like, oh, God, I like that element.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I like this element.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It all started with when I first started my journey with gamification, almost like, I don’t know, nine years ago.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I remember seeing Starbucks.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That was my first one.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I saw Starbucks and I saw that they had the challenges, they had the double points, the star days and stuff like that.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That was my first hit into what gamification is, without having a game, per se.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I then started exploring and then I started seeing Sephora with their challenges.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: What I liked about them was their community and the way that they use the badges in the community and things like that.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: They also had challenges around product exploration.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That means they’re trying to increase their order values and stuff like that.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Nike, what I spoke about earlier, I love it.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I love the fact that they are trying to build that identity of being an athlete with all these badges, and they have challenges and stuff like that.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It makes sense.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I started looking at QSR and I started looking at games integrated into the loyalty program, not just bolted on.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So then when I saw that and I saw that in KFC and I saw that with KFC Arcade, and I saw that with McDonald’s, the Monopoly, it was all positioned on the purchase occasion part of things.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But when I really think about gamification, I always go back to an education platform, and I’m sure everyone knows it, Duolingo.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: The reason why I speak about it is because I tried to learn French, and I started breaking those streaks and I was guilty.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I felt actual guilt, and that’s when I realized, okay, they are really forming a habit.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But when we think of another industry, let’s say the sporting industry, there’s one example done by PlayFab and Microsoft, that’s part of Microsoft.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: PlayFab, Microsoft has basically partnered with Epsilon exclusively, and what they do is they actually take a page out of the gaming world.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Do you remember when I spoke about LiveOps, the whole ongoing management and optimization?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: They have those capabilities, and for context, let me just give you a context on PlayFab.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: They power games like Minecraft and Robloxers and things like that.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But what they’ve done is they use LiveOps to power that gamification, and they bring it to the business world, and one of the, actually it’s a team, it’s called LA.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Clippers, basketball team.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: The objective that they had, right?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: They just wanted to win.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: They wanted to win, they wanted support, they wanted to nudge behavior, they wanted to bring people into the stadium.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: They wanted a fan base that had a differentiated experience.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So they have a stadium, you know, where it’s fascinating, where they capture facial recognition.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: They know what you’re wearing.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Are you wearing the jersey?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You know, are you sitting on your seat?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: How loudly are you cheering?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So when all of that comes in, the gamified experiences that can be integrated into this entire sporting experience within that stadium, that’s incredible.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That created competitive advantage for them.

AMANDA: I think I said to you at the start of our interview, like five years ago, like now I really do believe gamification is well established in our in our world of loyalty.

AMANDA: And so five years ago, board members would roll their eyes if you use the word.

AMANDA: So is it gamification or gamification?

AMANDA: Like, is it seen as gimmicky, gamification?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It can be.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It can be, because sometimes when I do have discussions, like I said, the first thought is, Oh, do you have a spin the wheel?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Or do you have a scratch card?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Or is it some other sort of game?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That is that is actually time spent.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That is that is a game.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Gamification is taking game like mechanics and applying it into the business world, because they tap into the intrinsic motivation.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s what changes behavior.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And if you integrate it within your loyalty program, that becomes a point where you actually spend time with it with a goal at the end of it, and that’s time invested.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s the key differentiation for me.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s, I take, when I think about it, I take my inspiration from all the different games that I have played.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I’m sure a lot of people have played Mario Brothers when they were young.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I don’t know, maybe.

AMANDA: I didn’t know that.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s just this guy, and this guy goes, you know, and he needs to save the princess.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: But there are so many levels.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You have to collect these mushrooms.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Now apply that into the business world.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It changes a little bit.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Things start flashing.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You know, you have to go and collect that.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Think about it in the business world.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: What would you do?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: You would have a website, and maybe, maybe, you know, you’ll have the loyalty part of it a little in a different color.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So you look at them.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: I’ve seen YouTube does it really well because they want you to click the subscribe button.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So that subscribe button has a little something shining around it.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: It’s just how you leverage all those different elements of gaming, but you put it into the business world.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: That’s my understanding of gamification.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: And when you do use games, try and use it with something that is linked to your loyalty program and it adds value over a period of time.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: So the objective is at the end of the day, value exchange.

AMANDA: Yeah, stunning.

AMANDA: What a lovely way of describing it.

AMANDA: So I could listen to it all day.

AMANDA: This is so exciting.

AMANDA: So interesting.

AMANDA: You’ve got me hooked entirely.

AMANDA: I’m just hanging on every word.

AMANDA: We unfortunately can’t talk every day because the podcast will go on too long.

AMANDA: So I think what we must do is generously share links to your own writing, your own blog and any other articles you’ve contributed to.

AMANDA: Are you okay that we pop those in the show notes?

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Absolutely fine.

AMANDA: I certainly will be downloading every single one of them, which is just amazing.

AMANDA: I wanted to just touch back to your reference of Duolingo.

AMANDA: I don’t know if you know that Paula has one of the longest streaks I’ve ever known of anyone for French in Duolingo.

AMANDA: So shout out to you there, Paula.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Lucky her.

AMANDA: Okay, wonderful.

AMANDA: So Mrinalini, thank you so much.

AMANDA: There is so much depth in what you’re talking about.

AMANDA: And I think it’s not about gamification, it’s about actually engaging our customers and ultimately making it more pleasurable for customers, of course, but getting that return on investment.

AMANDA: And it’s very exciting to hear that Epsilon is, is working, you know, with its clients to enable that.

AMANDA: So thank you for sharing the insights today wasn’t really about talking about Epsilon’s platform at all.

AMANDA: It’s been a real masterclass in, in consumer psychology and in gamification.

AMANDA: And that’s real credit to you.

AMANDA: So thank you so, so much.

MRINALINI CHOWDRAY: Pleasure to be here.

PAULA: This show is sponsored by Wise Marketeer Group, operating the Wise Marketeer and Loyalty Academy.

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